


It's (Not) My Party, and I'll Cry if I Want To

by IndraraSkye



Series: Caledonia [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Selkies, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, estrangement from BH pack, probably a million other tags I'm missing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 12:44:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19992430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndraraSkye/pseuds/IndraraSkye
Summary: Picks up where "Caledonia" left it. Much less head space, a bit more explanation, and an awkward reunion!





	It's (Not) My Party, and I'll Cry if I Want To

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to just work up the actual ceremony and the party and then let Stiles off the hook for his Rome vacay, but then I blinked and a greater plot surfaced, so I might be writing another something before Stiles gets to vanish into the sunset again. Oops. Also, this is my very first Steter thing to ever go up, so I hope I got something right. This is entirely un-beta'ed, and my second glance was more of a skim, so all mistakes, information holes, and completely OOC moments are mine and mine alone.

_He’s your father. Of course he wants you there. He has always loved and valued you_.

He arrived at the park five minutes before the ceremony commemorating his father’s retirement from public service law enforcement was scheduled to begin. White slatted lawn chairs lined the part of the park sectioned off for the ceremony, two rows of ten chairs each separated by a wide aisle and stretching back into ten rows total. They’d only put out 100 chairs. Beacon Hills was small, but his father had touched more than 100 hearts in his time in the sheriff’s department. This was going to end up being standing room only.

For now, though, a chair on the aisle in the back row was open, so he quietly snagged it, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He took a moment to let the picture on his lock screen—a triquetra laid over a triskelle—calm and center him. It was the same picture he had tattooed over his heart five years ago. _You’re so fucking_ romantic _, oh my god. What would your clients think if they knew what a marshmallow you actually are?_

He smiled. In the end, he hadn’t been the only one to get that tattoo; one of those tats had to be burned on, and it wasn’t his. Romantic marshmallow, his ass.

A new text notification scrolled across his screen. He had two new messages. One wished him luck and reminded him that he was always loved no matter what, and another asked him if he had the time to talk to a selkie in Beacon Hills while he was there. He sent a heart in response to the first message without thinking about it. He frowned at the second message. 

It had come from one of his trusted contractors. He’d worked with Al for a lot of years, and he’d made some actual good friends in the process. He trusted her to send him quality jobs, but a selkie in Beacon Hills? Beacon Hills was a landlocked town, and selkies made it a practice to never stray too far from their beloved salt water. The ocean was an hour and a half away. What was a selkie doing here?

He’d hit send on a message confirming that he could do that, agreed to mostly because he tended to like selkies in general and was curious as hell about why one would be in a town like Beacon Hills, when something thumped against the microphone at the front of this little gathering. He looked up; the crowd had thickened in the last few minutes. People crowded on chairs and stood on the outskirts of the rows. A quick glance behind him confirmed that people crowded around to stand behind the hundred chairs. He nodded. Standing room only. His father had touched a lot of hearts. 

He slouched back into his chair and directed his attention toward the raised dais that microphone stood on. Several men and women processed their way onto the stage. He recognized more than a few. One of his old high school teachers was all dressed up in her business best, bright lipstick and blonde hair in pin curls. He couldn’t remember her name, but god, could she drone on about world history. Someone had evidently figured out a way to thaw Parrish out, too, because he was up there in a police uniform and a smile, as well as a few of Dad’s deputies, the sheriff before Dad, and the man of the hour himself, dressed in a business suit Stiles knew he hadn’t owned back in the day and smiling back tears as Stiles’s old history teacher droned on about his dad’s achievements. 

What would a selkie want with his services? An inland selkie, at that. Maybe it had lost its tribe. He’s found groups before, helped with relocation. He really hoped it still had its pelt. If the selkie was reaching out for help, it was still fairly lucid, so there was that. If it was about a missing pelt, it hadn’t been gone for long. 

His father’s voice boomed into the microphone and thanked the mayor for all her kind words, which explained why his former history teacher was all decked out and speaking at his father’s retirement. He slouched down further and tried not to look at the man at the microphone for fear of accidentally making eye contact. 

_It has been six years, darling. I know something about Stilinski stubbornness. Give the man a chance and reach out to him_.

The thing was, his dad could have reached out to him. He made sure to keep his PO box the same, his phone number the same. He even still had the gmail address he’d had in high school. His dad hadn’t once even tried to contact him—no missed calls, no vacation postcards, nothing in the spam email folder. Stiles hadn’t been the one to deliver a ridiculous ultimatum. He wasn’t the one to scream about money and time wasted and scum that was only using Stiles. Stiles had nothing to apologize for, to hide from. He wasn’t the one who needed to reach out. His dad had delivered a ridiculous ultimatum. He’d honored it. 

_Family is important, Stiles. Trust me._

The people around him clapped and whistled. He looked back up again to watch the apparent mayor give his dad a royal blue watch box. His dad had successfully not died for forty years, and they gave him a watch. He snorted. His dad had been able to retire at the proper age in Beacon Hills. That man deserved actual medals. 

The important town people left the dais and he turned back to his phone, tapping out a quick message: “ _Rome may have to wait a few days. Potential trouble in Beacon Hills._ ” 

The crowd around him stood and milled around, small talking each other. His phone chimed. “ _You okay? You need an out?_ ”

He huffed. Where was this sort of response when he’d asked for company in the first place? “ _No out yet. Selkie in town_.”

He shoved the phone back into his pocket and stood up, shuffling back to the parking lot and the Ford Taurus that would deliver him to the “celebratory gathering afterward.” His dad had better have insisted on beer.

***

Said celebratory gathering was being held at Milligan’s, because of course it was. He’d spent many of his formative years at Milligan’s, reading fantasy fiction books in a corner while his dad socialized with other police or eating pretzels and beer cheese while his dad ordered shots for his friends or escorting his dad home after pouring him off the bar stool and out the front door of the place. Milligan’s had taught him that the only way to drink was to excess. It had taken him a long time to realize that wasn’t necessarily true—a long time and an absolute wine snob.

_No, you fucktard, we do NOT drink a cab as complex as this like that! You sip it, see?_

He’d learned to sip. 

He flowed between and around the half of town that was already milling inside the building and sidled up to one side of the bar, ordering a beer. The bartender recognized him, apparently.

“Stiles Stilinski!” The guy slid a bottle of MGD down to him. “Long time no see, dude! How ya been?”

He should probably remember this guy’s name. He wasn’t his dad’s age, but he was definitely older than Stiles. “Fine, man. You?”

He took a pull from the bottle and wished his wine snob could be here to watch him enjoy it. He probably would have flipped Stiles off in return, which would probably lead to a very lewd statement about other things he could do with that finger. Stiles did so enjoy his fingers. 

“Yeah, man, doing great! You remember my little girl, Sharon? She’s going into sixth grade already. Can you believe it?”

Mike! Mark? Mick. Mack? Shit. “That is crazy.” He shook his head and tipped his beer bottle. “Time flies, right?”

The bartender chuckled and shot him a quick salute before turning and dealing with other party-goers. Stiles took the opportunity to roll his eyes and carry his beer back to a corner of the building he hoped to blend into for the rest of the afternoon. He’d pulled a chair into the corner when his phone rang from his pocket, a jaunty classical piece that let him know the number was not in his contact list. He pulled it out and took the call because he’d just spotted Scott McCall, and there was no way Scott would come over and talk to him if he was on his phone, right? 

The voice on the other end of the line was male and fairly gruff. He didn’t recognize it. The guy introduced himself as the selkie Al had mentioned just as Scott looked over and they made accidental eye contact. He was a grown man. He was now in his thirties. He did not flail. Much. Instead, he asked the selkie—Aaron, apparently—what he could help with and listened to the guy explain how he’d lost his PELT as Scott freakin’ McCall turned and started heading his way. He closed his eyes. This was not happening. This was not…Of course this was happening. Scott McCall tended to “bull in a China shop” his way through life in general. Of course he would see Stiles and just decide, “Hmm, I haven’t seen or heard from Stiles in, like, eight years! I should absolutely go see him while he’s hiding in a corner at his dad’s retirement party. That is definitely a good idea.” Because Scott.

Scott looked pretty good, though, for being a werewolf in his thirties. He was darker than he’d been when they’d been in school, obviously spending a lot of time outside. His hair was cut and styled, and his clothes actually looked to be the right size for him. Stiles wondered briefly if someone else had dressed him for the occasion. His own outfit was picked out for him. _You can’t be trusted in this, Stiles. You are a thirty year old man walking around in Hawaiian shirts and cargo shorts_.

His Aloha shirts kicked all kinds of ass, and he could fit several wands in just ONE of the pockets of his chosen pants. Snobwolf could suck it.

He diverted his attention back to the phone, where the selkie on the other end had just finished what Stiles was sure was a very harrowing story about how the guy had actually managed to LOSE his PELT. It was the one thing in all existence that let him change back and forth, that didn’t restrict him to land, and he’d LOST it. It was LITERALLY a second skin. 

“I can help you with that, Aaron, but we’ll need to sit down face to face and work out a contract. My services don’t come cheap, but they’re usually worth the price.”

He preened a bit when the selkie said he’d come so highly recommended that he was fine with paying whatever. Whatever was good. Whatever would allow him to eat room service naked in bed and spit crumbs all over the sheets when his snobby half complained about it. He rubbed at the spot on his ring finger that held his tattoo band. They’d both agreed that rings were unnecessary with their lines of work, but something physical like a metal band would comfort him more when he was out of his element like this.

Scott arrived in front of him, smiling tentatively at him. Stiles held one finger up to Scott in the universal “wait a minute” gesture and set up a meeting with Aaron the next day over coffee at a time that was entirely too early for him. 

_It is 11:30 already, Stiles. Do you ever plan on getting up? I can appreciate beauty sleep, but this is getting ridiculous_.

He hung up and sighed at the problem standing in front of him, shoving his hands in the pockets of his dress pants and allowing his nose to twitch its anxiety about the whole damn situation.

“Scott, long time no see.”

Scott’s smile widened, like they hadn’t spent almost nine years estranged from each other. “Stiles! It’s good to see you again! Where have you been hiding yourself?”

Like he was the one who separated himself from Scott and the pack. Like Scott hadn’t forced him out of town and told him never to come back again. Like he had been the immature one, the child who took his bat and his ball and ran away from home.

“I’ve been all over the place, really. It turns out that I like to travel.” He offered a sardonic smile. “Who knew?”

The one other person Scott and his cronies had run out of town, that’s who. He’d called it, and he’d been right. There was a lot of world to see, as it turned out.

Scott nodded like they were just engaged in a friendly discussion. Stiles dropped the sarcasm.

“Listen, Scott, I’m glad to see that you’re upright and still alive, I am, but we’re not friends. You made that abundantly clear when we finished our undergrad years. This?” He took one hand out of his pocket and gestured between the two of them. “It’s not going to happen now because it doesn’t. make. sense. I’m here because it’s a miracle my father was able to retire from public service at an appropriate age, and I was invited to witness this miracle. I am not here to mend fences or rebuild bridges that _I_ didn’t burn down in the first place, so let’s skip the niceties, huh? You can go back to your party, and I’ll stay here in my corner, and we’ll just keep going on with our lives, okay?”

Scott spluttered, and Stiles blinked. When he opened his eyes again, mere microseconds later, Derek Hale was standing in front of him, a Bud Light in his hand and one eyebrow almost in his hairline. Stiles inclined his head at him before taking another gulp of his beer and wondering if he could ask for that “out” now, if anyone would notice. He wondered how that conversation would go. Probably entirely too much begging and pleading on his part and not enough actual situation offered to get him out of Beacon Hills that afternoon.

Derek’s facial expression didn’t morph at all. He kept that one eyebrow inclined entirely too high to be natural. “It’s not just Scott’s party, you know. You’re here, Stiles, which makes this your party, too, and I’m pretty sure your dad would be less than thrilled to hear you’re not having fun. Would you like me to get him real quick?”

These people. THESE PEOPLE. They hated his relationship. If he brought that up, maybe they’d skitter away.

“Your uncle would be less than thrilled to hear I’m not having fun, too. I’ll have to let him know.” He took out his phone. “Want to tell him hi?”

Scott blanched. Derek rolled his eyes and then did something Stiles was not expecting: He called Stiles’s bluff.

“Absolutely. It’s been a while since I last heard from a serial killer. I’d love to catch up.”

Scott’s skin tone was going pale enough Stiles had to stop himself from telling Scott to put his head between his legs and breathe. Stiles smirked, finding Peter’s number and hitting the speaker button. Peter answered on the second ring.

“Stiles, why is there a selkie in a small landlocked town, and why is said selkie putting vacation plans on hold? Also, I take it this phone call means you survived your little party as well as I knew you would.”

“Stuff it, Pete. I am having a miserable time, and I’m surrounded by people whose existence is entirely your fault and the selkie has lost his damn skin. Also, you’re on speaker. Your sniffer available?”

“Dear boy, no living being on this earth is entirely my fault, and I am not going back to that town because you need me to play bloodhound yet again. It doesn’t matter how many times you offer to blow me, baby; selkies are not worth dealing with the people in Beacon Hills.”

Derek’s other eyebrow raised and a grimace crossed his face. Nobody had gotten over their relationship, apparently. Stiles could work with that. His smirk rested into something slightly more friendly. “But you love it when I blow you, Daddy, and you are the best bloodhound ever. Help me help this selkie, and I’ll eat you for breakfast.”

Derek made heaving noises and gestures at him. Scott may have actually heaved slightly. Peter chuckled through the speaker. “Oh, baby boy, you are truly magnificent. I’m going to guess that my nephew and your bonehead friend are the ones surrounding you?”

Stiles rolled his eyes. Derek took a swig from his Bud Light and spoke up. “Hello again, Peter. Kill anyone lately?”

Stiles huffed; he knew the answer to that question. Scott huffed and puffed. Stiles was going to hate everything that was about to come out of his mouth.

“Has he been killing people? That’s not okay, Stiles! It is not okay to talk to people who have killed people!”

Stiles closed his eyes and rubbed at his temples with one hand. He could hear Peter’s amused snort over the phone. 

“If it makes you feel any better, Scott, I’ve only killed people Stiles told me I could kill.”

That was not helping. That was not even close to helping. That was…He didn’t even know what that was, but it was not helping, and it was only mostly true. It was hard to do what his fella did and not kill people. He doubted Pete ran EVERY kill by him first.

Derek hung his head and rubbed at that spot between his eyebrows with one finger. Scott had an index finger raised, like he was about to shake it in Stiles’s direction. Stiles looked between them. “That was out loud, baby.” Peter sounded chipper. God damn it.

Scott was full-body spasming at that point, but at least the damn finger lowered. 

“Are you going to come help me with this selkie thing, Pete? We can leave directly for Rome after if you do.”

Derek blinked a few times, but nobody interrupted the phone conversation.

“I’m in Saint Petersburg right now, love, finishing up a few loose ends. If I finished up messy, I could be ready to leave by tonight, but it’s still going to take me a couple days to get back to you.”

He nodded, even though he knew Pete couldn’t hear it. It was going to take him a couple days to get the basics laid with the selkie. Their pelts were what kept them safe and sane, so he was going to have to secure that safety and sanity in other ways for this poor guy before the search for the pelt even started, although he’d like to get a competent nose on the case right away. A few days would have to do.

“Just make it ASAP, jerk. I need you here.”

The voice on the other end of the line got softer. “I know you do, Stiles. I’ll be there as soon as I can without leaving any loose ends behind here. It may mean certain things might have to happen in lieu of others—”

“I’m okay with that.” He was, too. He really was okay with Peter’s way of doing things. A decade was a long time to actually sit down and talk to someone, and Peter wasn’t into video games or random TV shows or other ways two people bonded without actually talking. He’d only watch a movie with Stiles if Stiles agreed to dinner first, and Pete actually loved talking over dinner. It had always been one of the wolf’s favorite pastimes. It turns out that the love of snark and the sound of his own voice that Stiles had hated so much through high school turned into philosophical discussions and hypothetical situations once someone showed Peter Hale that they were okay with actually talking to him. That was how Peter became, well, human in his eyes. 

He’d never suspected his sophomore year in college to change so much of his life, but it did. Peter became human. Stiles realized that the big, bad outside world might have held answers and ideas that nobody in Beacon Hills had ever even wanted to explore. He’d found his magic, really found it. He’d found his appreciation for his own sex, the idea he could love one man in particular when given enough time. He didn’t know how to tell his ex girlfriends that the vitriol they’d spit at him during breakups wasn’t completely a lie. 

Life is rarely as cut and dry as it had been here in Beacon Hills, and it hadn’t been as cut and dry in Beacon Hills as they’d have liked to believe back then. 

“Then give me two days, love. I’ll clean up here and spend a day traveling and be there by Tuesday morning.”

He exhaled a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, the tension in his shoulders whooshing out with his breath. Finding the pelt would be no problem, but he had already learned that Beacon Hills WAS as bad as Texas.

“Love you, Petey.”

“I love you too, dear heart. Let my nephew know that I’m all grown up now, so I only kill people who have it coming. Keep your head up, and don’t let Scott, your dad, or any of your exes get to you. Remember how strong you are.”

A click over the speaker let him know that Pete ended the call. He inhaled deeply and shoved his phone back in his pocket, turning to look at Derek. “Are you in town for the next couple of days? I’d like to get started on this latest development as soon as I can, and your nose might not be quite as good as Peter’s, but it’s still pretty good. I could pay you for your time.”

Derek stared at him for a minute. He let him, taking the time to actually look at the wolf in front of him. Derek looked older, more settled in his skin. His hair had a few streaks of gray in it, mostly at the temples, and the scruffy beard he was sporting had patches of white. His eyes crinkled at the outer corners. They’d all gotten older as eight years passed, but he wondered why Derek looked it. One thing he’d learned early on in his travels is that werewolves didn’t age the same way humans did. They still aged—they weren’t immortal like turned vamps—but their healing abilities kept them younger for much longer. Petey was in his fifties, now, but he and Stiles looked and acted much the same when it came to signs of age. His joints were in better shape than Stiles’s, even. Derek shouldn’t have looked so old. 

Derek was still fit; there was no doubt about that. His gray button-down shirt was just snug enough that Stiles could see the biceps bulging against the material, and the shirt sleeves were rolled up to reveal forearms that rippled with every movement. Stiles wasn’t sure whether he’d gone back to punishing himself through exercise or if he’d been that active since he’d left to “find himself” or whatever. His gray and white patches of hair bothered Stiles, though. Something wasn’t right.

Derek nodded. “I’ve been back here for a few years. I have plans tomorrow, but I can help you after that if you want. I didn’t think selkies came this far inland.”

Stiles snorted. They normally didn’t. The fact that this one had was intriguing. “I don’t know what’s up with this one. I’ll find out tomorrow morning, I guess. I can meet you for coffee tomorrow at 2, fill you in on what I find out and what I need you to do.”

Beside Derek, Scott scoffed. “I’m an alpha, Stiles. I can help hunt down whatever you need; I’d be glad to do it for an old friend. I’d be a better help than Derek.”

They weren’t friends. Scott knew that. He’d just TOLD Scott that. He’d spelled it out, used actual words and all. 

_You talk too much, Stiles. Sometimes a good punch can communicate the same thing as 100 of your well-placed words_. 

He smirked and shook his head lightly at the voice in his head—the advice had been in reference to his year-long spat with some rowdy mer people, but the words felt relevant today, too. He was not, however, going to punch Alpha Scott McCall in the face during his father’s retirement celebration—mostly because then his father would acknowledge him and he would have to deal with the fallout from that and god DAMN it, he was thirty years old! He should not still be skulking about and trying to hide things from his dad! He set his face into the look that he had to explain to people meant “determined.”

“But you’re not alpha here anymore, Scott. You don’t run these boundaries. You don’t protect this territory. I am in no way beholden to explain my presence or seek your approval or help while here. Derek may not be an alpha, but his senses were always better than yours, and I seriously doubt you’ve practiced to improve in the last almost-nine years. So, while professionally I appreciate your help, I don’t actually need you.” He turned to Derek. “I’ll see you tomorrow at 2 pm at…Is Melissandra’s still open?”

The coffee shop was actually owned by a guy named Sid. Sid had opened the place when Stiles was fifteen, and he made great espressos. As far as Stiles had known, Sid had never known anyone by the name of Melissandra. When Stiles had finally asked about the name of the coffee shop, Sid had simply said that the name Melissandra seemed more cryptic and coffee-shopish than Sid. Stiles had to give him that.

Derek nodded. Stiles threw a half a smirk and a thumbs-up in his direction. “See you there.”

He pushed past Scott and away from the corner he’d really been hoping he could hide in. He thought about weaving through the crowd and back to the bar for another beer, but he still couldn’t remember that bartender’s name, and if he went back there, he could be subjected to pictures of a growing child, and he was not inebriated enough for that.

He was not inebriated enough to handle coming chest to chest with his father, either, apparently. He’d come to celebrate the man. He knew it was inevitable that he’d have to interact with him. He’d prepared for this. There may or may not have been flashcards involved, and wasn’t that just a fun night for all involved? The aconite whiskey had come out then and everything.

His father had more white in his hair upon closer inspection. It was still light blond, so the white blended nicely from a distance, but there were definitely patches in there. The laugh lines around his eyes had deepened, and the lines around his cheeks creased more up than down. He’d managed to put a bit of weight on around the middle, but he carried it well.

One of his father’s broad hands wrapped around a bicep, steadying Stiles in his place before his dad had even looked over at his face. “Excuse—Stiles?”

He didn’t know how to respond. The flashcards and the ensuing bickering were all for nothing. His dad hadn’t started with “hello” or “thanks for coming” or “you’re the last person I expected to see here; what on earth made you think we’d want you here?” like he’d prepared for. (Fine, he’d been told repeatedly that the last point was probably not going to come up in any conversations while he was there, but he liked to be prepared, okay? Anything could happen with these people.)

He settled for the sarcasm he could always fall back on when he was truly uncomfortable in a situation. “Absolutely. Stiles is completely excused.”

His dad scowled and took a step back. “I. It’s good to see you? Mel said she’d sent you an invitation, but we weren’t sure if you’d make it.”

He pursed his lips in so he could bite down on them and tried to look anywhere that wasn’t his dad. “Well, here I am. The prodigal son, blah blah blah. Congratulations surviving your years as sheriff of Beacon Hills, by the way. They should have given you a medal.”

His dad looked sheepish and scratched gently at the back of his head. “I’m just happy to retire with use of all four of my limbs, really. A medal would just end up collecting dust somewhere.”

The flashcards hadn’t covered that, either. This was as odd and awkward as he’d been afraid it would be. Eight years ago his dad had told him that he couldn’t date Peter Hale and still be his son. He told Stiles he had to choose. Stiles never had been good with ultimatums. He chose. 

He’d tried to send birthday cards and he left a couple Christmas voice mails for his dad, but two years later his dad had left him a message to let him know that if he was going to continue “carrying on” with Peter, he should stop calling. So he did.

What did someone say to their dad after six years of radio silence? What could he say to the one man he’d always expected to understand the idea of healing and second chances, who’d failed spectacularly in that area? _Nice weather, huh?_ Somehow, that didn’t feel like it would cut it. His dad picked up the conversational slack.

“So, is it just you here?”

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Being back here was EXHAUSTING. He’d had to tell Scott they weren’t friends not once, but twice; Derek was aging faster than he should be; and his father’s opener was to ask him if he’d finally ditched the love of his life. The bar felt too cold to contain so many bodies, and he huddled further into himself.

“Yep, it’s just me here. Pete says he was sorry he couldn’t make it, but business in Russia is keeping him away. He sends his congratulations, though.”

_Stiles, do not, for the love of anything you actually find holy, bait your father with me. Just—just get through the party, drink some of that shit you like to call beer, make small talk with the peasants, and then come to Rome with me. Follow the fucking flash cards_.

Petey was going to be so mad at him. It made him smirk. It made the room a little warmer. He could breathe a little deeper just knowing how much Zombiewolf would splutter over that.

His dad nodded. “Tell him I said thanks.”

He nodded, the fingers of his free hand drumming against the one pair of dress slacks he owned. He spent just a moment regretting his decision a couple weeks ago to charm his fidget cube into a bomb and throw it at the assassins. He needed something to click. Then he took a deep breath and set his shoulders back. “New suit?”

He could do this. It was time.


End file.
